Tom Hering Comments: Chapter One, paragraph one – “Outside the bedroom window rain dripped steadily from the tall Douglas firs. Isobel Dempster did not have to raise the blinds and look out to know what kind of a day it was. It was wet. It was the first day of June, when the whole world should be bright and sunny, but not the Skagit Valley in the state of Washington. Here it was wet. It was wet here yesterday and would be wet tomorrow, and barring some miracle it would be wet next week too.”

LOL oh man i love this cover!! Especially the hawaian shirt battle in the background, you can almost see the “POW!” flashing on the screen.

Also whats up with the Mexican gunslinger/superior court judge/mariachi band member using a gavel as a weapon? Or is he trying to free that woman?? Judging from his body position, he is going to miss badly (probably drunk on margaritas) and fall flat on his face.

I am with SI, all i hear is the magnum PI theme song playing when I look at that sexy brain. Where is the moustache??

My goodness you are correct, Tag-W: none of the shadows matches the objects casting the shadow! Hatchet-man’s shadow is bent forward much farther than his actual body, and the poor tied up woman’s shadow seems to show her slumping to avoid whatever blow he is bent to deliver.

Maybe such a Big Brain sends out brain waves that warp the time continuum so that the shadows show, not where things are, but where they will momentarily be. That this is fairly useless information probably doesn’t bother a Big Brain. “I knew that,” he’d no doubt reply if you told him.

I just discovered that if you use the word “bondage” in a post it gets bounced back. Well, we’ll see . . . .it seem if you put it in quotes it’s ok. I think I am having post-modern moment. If only I had a Big Brain I could figure out what’s going on.

Very puzzling, Tag, sir. I kept getting an “access forbidden” and something with the word “Apache” in it and couldn’t figure out why until I just tried replacing “Bondage” woman” with “tied up woman and then it went through. Six of one, seems to me, but who am I to question the interwebs?

Wow, it just happened again. Ok: I can’t literally show this b/c it won’t get through but if you use the word “bondage” and hyphenate it to the word “woman” the post is bounced. Obviously the work-around isn’t too difficult to figure out, but this narrow usage is verboten.

@DS, FoM, Tag-Wâ€”I appreciate the helpful commentary on my dilemma. I must confess that despite my advancing age I am a bit of a naif in these techno-realms. I could never match, for example, Bibliomancer’s amazing creative skills. Truth to tell, I am a soft Luddite, hence apt to be taken aback by phenomena ya’ll take for granted and with good humor. Well well, another rite of passage pour moi. And another reason to love this site so well. Good thing we aren’t commenting on Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. I’d be tempted to add the hyphen and the word “woman” and then, here comes the trout! 🙂

This cover is epic. I want to know who the woman is who is defying dastardly men with sombreros while wearing high heels. I have no doubt that Magnum will come and rescue her when he’s done fighting that other guy in the bar. (I thought for a moment his opponent had nun-chucks but it’s just weird shadows. And what IS that thing that looks like a wooden shield?)
I have a theory…maybe the man with the big brain just appears to have a transparent skull because the viewer has been gifted with x-ray vision by virtue of reading this book! Anybody second me?…Okay, I’ve read way too much SF…

I don’t think that the two guys in the background are fighting at all. It looks more like one guy trying to prevent his friend from drinking himself into a stupor.

Carlos: “No Pedro, don’t do it. You are killing yourself!”
Pedro: “I can’t take it anymore Carlos, my wife is into weird stuff like being tied up and having a weird bald guys watch her while some dude insults her while holding a hatchet….*hick*”